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Talk:Flora Blackford
Looking at her succession boxes. . . . All these Unknowns as her predecessors and successors as First and Second Lady (Is Second Lady a real title at all?) We know who succeeded Blackford as VP, we know who pre- AND succeeded him as President, and all three were historical figures. (Obviously we don't know preceded him as Vice President, and whether that person was married or unmarried, historical or ficticious.) Should we assume the wives were the same? I hate to see succession boxes where both the predecessor and successor spots are essentially blank. [[User:Turtle Fan|Turtle Fan] 18:13, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :Second Lady is indeed a real title. It's rather informal, even compared with First Lady. ::First Lady is a very formal title. And even a little bit functional, though function certainly follows form, almost (though not quite) to an extent more commonly seen in London than Washington. ::The Second Lady, as far as I can see, does nothing, though there is indeed such a title. Oh well. Turtle Fan 19:43, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :As to the wives: On the one hand, we have the Rose Kennedy precedent. Then again, we have the Samuel Clemens precedent. So we have equally valid arguments (insofar as we can have such arguments here) for and against the historical wives point. ::Rose Kennedy may well be the only post-POD TL-191 woman known to have married the same man. Alice Lee did not marry TR; no idea whether Edith Carrow did. Woodrow Wilson's being widowed in 1894 does not definitively prove he did not marry Ellen Axson, but it does cast some doubt on the subject. The existence of Robert Taft seems to suggest that William Howard Taft married Helen Herron. There are some points against, however: For one, Robert Taft was, at least politically, very different from the historical, which could mean anything or nothing. For another, the elder Taft seemed perfectly content with a House seat and the chairmanship of a lame-ass committee (though he was sour when he lost the latter) and the historical Taft drew his ambition, or at least a willingness to try for progressively higher offices that didn't otherwise interest him, from Helen's . . . "nagging" might be too unkind a word, but it does fit. Daniel MacArthur being a fictional brother of the now non-existent Douglas might mean Arthur MacArthur did not marry Mary Pinkney Hardy, or it might mean he did but he fucked her on a different night or his sperm came out in a different order. We've talked till we were blue in the face about the unlikelihood of Lord Randolph Churchill marrying Jennie Jerome, but we never got anywhere with it. ::No, it's not safe to assume historical figures married the same in 191. Clemens and Roosevelt are the only ones whom we know didn't, but so many others have large question marks. Turtle Fan 19:43, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :I hate the Unknowns as well, but I see no solid way around it. TR 18:52, June 7, 2010 (UTC) ::What about removing those boxes altogether? She'd still have two others, and for jobs she was more interested in anyway. And not just for aesthetic purposes; I really do believe succession boxes without anyone else's names in them are useless. Turtle Fan 19:43, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :::Done and done. TR 20:21, June 7, 2010 (UTC) ::::Huzzah! ::::It wouldn't be so bad if we had just one other First or Second Lady so we could say "Unknown; next known is. . . . " but Flora is the only woman we can know of to hold either position from the end of the Lincoln Administration onward. Despite the Evidence! that Josephe Patricke Kennedye Juniore will marry Mrs Nut-Ball, of course. Turtle Fan 23:11, June 7, 2010 (UTC)